Metallica have issued an apology after a number of blogs were told to remove advance reviews of the band's new album.

The group's album, which has yet to be titled, isn't released until September, however, a number of journalists were played rough mixes of the record last week.

Some journalists then went on to write reviews of the album, prompting the band's management company, Q Prime, to take action.

“Our response was 'WHY?!!! Why take down mostly positive reviews of the new material and prevent people from getting psyched about the next record ... that makes no sense to us,'" Metallica wrote on their website.

“The furore began when a bunch of journalists were invited to an album playback last week.

"Weirdly - and we really don't know what the hell they were thinking about here - some of these journalists then went and wrote about it.”

Metallica claim that they gave their management company a "managerial ear spank" when they heard that the reviews had been taken down.

(by Jason Gregory)